Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

Let winter be winter, be ice and fallow. Let yourself be settled, wrapped in warmth.  It need not take all of the months; it may only want a moment of your focus, that part of you that needs to seclude. Then, bring your plate to the feast. Be satiated. Feel it radiate.  Listen to your heart, listen to all of the hearts that beat and want nothing unreasonable, only to be heard.  Use the long nights to dream. This is not a luxury.  Light a candle, let yourself see from the flame to the shadow.  Ask yourself ‘Where is my hope?’  And there your feasted, rested soul begins the work.

Inaugural voyage of The Nancy-Doris, Tuesday 1st September 2020 [This morning in the polytunnel cabbage-white butterflies beat erratic: also many wings without bodies scattered the floor. Early harvest for spiders: picture them in their web-hammocks, slurping from husks; like cocktails out of coconuts. Hmm, says I, this is true: metamorphosis is beautiful not immortal; the cycle of life is also this, littered with wings, the memento mori. Get writing, I say to myself. Write the books before your pages are blowing away and the tutting spiders of time are sampling your puree. 'Caffeine rich earthiness, layered with seaweed oil, a top note of lime blossom.'] This afternoon, task by task we achieved new things: lifting our kayak to the Dacia roof, looping straps, securing straps (quick prayer for effectiveness of anchor points), Check list: seats, paddles, dry bag, an emergency phone app for contacting coastguards, and so forth. Deciding what to wear as the weather blows cold,

How Side Tracking Can Add Adventure To Your Life: a non cautionary tale. We were supposed to buy a washing line, but the shopping cart contains a kayak. How did this side tracking take off? It was the wet towels that did it: but first, some recent history: Sunday 9th August 2020 Home from work, straight home, skipping the beach in spite of the day’s heat because our garden has been populated with tents and family. Gathered at the top firepit, where tea was cooked, grabbed a sausage and a glass of house red, lay back to chat and watch for shooting stars - this being the time of the Persiad meteor showers. We forget how lucky it is to lack light pollution though we do not fail to appreciate the view. Every sparkling streak strikes wonder. It is 1am before Mr and me go to bed. Monday 10th August 2020 A 5am thunderstorm had woken us after the 1am bedtime, and now it was stifling hot. After work the fuel light in the car sent me to a garage where I stared at the pump making sure the word I

Words on Self Care in a Shifting World [Diary extract] Continuing to feel calm with undercurrents of dread. This is the new normal. I have had plenty of after work dips at Carlyon Bay, easily picking spots away from the gathered youths and the lone figures a-fishing for sea bass. The bar there is open now, neither busy nor empty. I can’t hear the music from the sea, only the waves. Last time I swam a school of sand eels swarmed me, leaping out of velvety turquoise water in little flexes of silver under a sky smudged from mauve to orange. Gaudy in a good way. I floated back and berated myself for such luck, though I have put intention and action into curating this, because this is how I honour life. It is important sometimes to chastise oneself, to shake out the demons of laziness and complacency. But when the dread seeps in it is necessary to change this tactic, to follow the sage routine: allow it, see it, know it as part of the flow of change. Give yourself the love you need. Smal

Words On Uncertainty, Social Change, and Weird Weather On New Years Day we started a project we are calling The 365. Poured a large bottle of vodka into a glass barrel and everyday put something into it, mostly from our garden, some foraged stuff. The idea being to make a unique spirit, a spirit of the year. We are a little afraid of it. (We keep feeding it.) 20/20 vision now means anything you didn’t imagine could happen. Fear of the unknown is pandemically viral. There’s a swell- if you don’t know the ocean maybe this word has less meaning. Can you close your eyes? Feel your skin touch the air that touches the sky that merges to space? A universal heft, dear friend. On a Friday (June 5th) Walked round the lanes, through a gate, through a field of cut grass which curved up and open to a playful breeze, over a stile, over a stream on a trip-trap bridge flanked by old trees, wading in thigh-high grass to the tipped over oak. Dog conquered the undergrowth while I climbed as high as I

Words On Love, Loss, And Grieving 21/5/2020 Dear Grace, I have said how your legacy is the small kind things; I have been noticing them more and more. It’s almost ridiculous, in a wonderful way, to be so taken by the pattern on a plate or how clever elastic is. I can’t stop making beautiful meals. Yesterday I woke up with the bravado to debone a turkey leg. It took awhile; regret was made fleeting by success. I feel like you know. That your light and care are here in everything and that’s why I am continually tuning in. The energy to transform everything is part of this, to celebrate our ordinary splendour. This has manifested into some minor furniture renovations and uncovered a leaking pipe under the bath. (I think we can fix it, I’ve put a cloth down for now to soak it up, left it open to dry out the floor and the rotted skirting board. The bath panel is outside meanwhile… should I paint it? Probably not…) This is the best of grief; the deep and peaceful loss, the fine example, yo

Words On Being Happy Two milestone birthdays today that I know of - of course there are more - one 70th, one 1st, to be celebrated from a distance. (70 years no longer sounds old, whereas one year of existence is a dot.) For Grandchild 7 we had sent a parcel by taxi: all the willow branch-and-twig cut down from pruning the arch (deliberately left to overgrow for this occasion) ribbon tied and rolled in an old tablecloth. A willow house kit! (Although it looked a little like I was disposing of a tall skinny body…) Which his family have assembled with pallet flooring, and I hope has survived last night’s high winds... For the 70th (Caroline Osborne-Dowle) a handmade card which dropped into the post box before I remembered that the post had already gone that day so it will be late - but I will call and give the real present, which is a pledge to spend time - to go out, to stay in, details will sort themselves out. Time is the priceless thing. We will march from dot to dusk, tra

Words On Loving Yourself Plan was this: to go to the woods then come home and write. I had asked my clever brother to make a graphic for me, of a phrase I use and wished to share, because it is so nearly my 50th birthday it was making me feel beneficently wise. What happened was: I was watching the happy arse of my dog as she thundered towards the river when a bundle of words arrived with a ferocity equal to her velocity, as though she had tugged them into being. Writing was done awkwardly, immediately, balanced on a knee.  These words: 'Imagine a sheet of paper, imagine you have a spoonful of ink. You fling the ink at the paper; some of it will miss. You are like this ink. But you are not this ink. You can refling yourself over and over and in doing this create something more fluid, dynamic, astounding, authentic, than anything any of us can fix to paper. Please breathe and feel your breath.  Please love yourself. Whatever doubt you are in, all